Arianna could not catch her breath. She was panting like a hard-run hunting dog. Beneath Brian’s caresses her flesh burned. When he stroked the aching tip of her breasts with his tongue, she barely stopped herself from screeching in shock at the pure heat it sent through her body. She did not have to urge him to do it again, which was good, for she was unable to speak coherently. Instead she wove her fingers through his soft, thick hair and held him close as he licked, nipped, and suckled her breasts until she thought she would go mad from the pleasure it brought her. He kept telling her how good she tasted, how soft her skin was, how much he wanted her, and even how beautiful her breasts were, his words stirring her as much as his touch. The almost constant sound of his deep voice held her entranced and, even though she doubted the truth of his flattery, it pleased her.
The tension of what she now recognized as her need for him curled hot and tight in her belly. When Brian slid his hand between her thighs she fleetingly stiffened, uncertain about the intimate caress she had never experienced before. He said nothing about the reddish curls sheltering her womanhood, only murmured compliments about the heat she was gifting him with. The way he stroked her, dipping his finger in and out of her in imitation of what he would soon do with the hard length he rubbed against her thigh, had her arching into his touch. And still she wanted, needed, more.
It was not until he began to join their bodies that a little of passion’s haze began to clear from her mind. With Claud this was what had been the most tedious and embarrassing part and the one that had then become painful. She had barely begun to go rigid, bracing herself for the stinging pain, when Brian was inside her. Arianna blinked in surprise, holding very still until she was certain that there had been no pain and would be no pain.
When he rose up on his forearms and touched his lips to hers, Arianna flung her arms around his neck and kissed him with all the passion swirling inside her, and a touch of gratitude. He thrust his tongue into her mouth, stroking her with his tongue in the same rhythm he used to move his body in and out of hers. She was filled with him, stretched further to hold him than she had ever been with Claud, yet there was still no pain. He tugged her legs around his waist and she gasped in delight as he plunged even deeper within her.
She could hear herself making soft noises as he moved within her, rubbing against her where their bodies were joined in away that increased the pleasure he was giving her. The knot low in her belly grew tighter and tighter with each thrust of his body until it was nearly painful. She was just beginning to wonder if she could ever make love without pain when that knot snapped, filling her veins, her heart, even her mind with the purest bliss. Arianna was faintly aware that she called out his name. A heartbeat later, he thrust deeply, held fast there inside her, and his body shuddered as he spilled his seed.
Though weak, in a way she thoroughly enjoyed, Arianna held him close and savored the lingering flush of pleasure. She liked the damp warmth of his breath against the curve of her neck, liked the damp touch of sweat coating his broad back, and especially liked the faint trembling that afflicted him for several moments after he collapsed in her arms. With Claud she had been glad when he had abruptly left her arms, but she wanted to cling to Brian, wanted to hold him deep inside her for as long as possible.
This was what the women in her clan had sighed over, had tried to get her to understand. This was passion, that deep, wild hunger that her husband had never given her. Even better, this was a passion that was shared. She suspected she was not completely free of her doubts that she could please a man, but for right now she was certain that the man in her arms had been pleasured most thoroughly. The cure for the wounds Claud had given her was probably not complete but she did not care for she was certain that the healing had begun. If she was not so tired she could not even keep her eyes open to appreciate the beauty of the man sprawled in her arms, she would have gotten up to dance around the room.
“I did weel, aye?” she whispered as she allowed exhaustion to finally claim her.
Brian slipped from her lax hold and dragged himself out of bed to fetch a damp cloth. Once he had cleaned them both off, he crawled back into bed and pulled her into his arms. He took a moment to enjoy the sight of her naked body from the fullness of her rose-tipped breasts to the gentle curve of her waist. He especially liked the lean strength of her legs. Even more so when they were wrapped around him, that strength used to hold him close while he buried himself deep within her wet heat.
It was hard to understand how a woman like her could think herself unable to please any man she chose to gift with her favors. Her passion ran hot and wild once she stopped running from it. Claud had tried to kill that sweet heat, left it unsatisfied and then denigrated her. If the man were not already dead, Brian would have been willing to go to France to kill him.
He touched a kiss to the top of her head and smiled against her silken hair. “Och, aye, love. Ye did weel. Verra weel indeed,” he murmured before allowing himself to follow her into sleep.
Chapter 7
Arianna woke to soft, warm lips upon her cheek and a big calloused hand stroking her breast. For a moment, she thought herself back in her marriage bed but then the last dregs of sleep released her mind. Claud had never been affectionate like this. Her eyes widened as she abruptly recalled everything that had happened before she had fallen asleep.
She was curled up in bed with Sir Brian MacFingal, naked and wrapped in his arms. She had taken a lover. She had taken a big, strong, handsome lover many women would envy her for. She had also enjoyed every minute of it. That still astonished her as much as it pleased her right down to her toes. Claud had been very wrong. She was not cold.
Even as she began to smile, fear crept in, rapidly dimming her pleasure. Arianna could not deny that she had finally tasted that pleasure her kinswomen all talked about, but had Sir Brian really experienced the same pleasure? She had felt him spill his seed inside her but Claud had done the same. When she had foolishly given her opinion that that showed he had found pleasure with her, he had laughed. Claud had then told her that a man could rut with a hole in the ground, which he had said was a good thing for she was not much livelier. Had she misjudged the depth of the pleasure Brian had experienced?
When those soft, warm lips touched the corner of her mouth, she recalled something else Claud had often said. She had once attempted to kiss him in the morning upon awakening and he had roughly pushed her away, claiming that in the morning she had breath akin to the bottom of a garderobe shaft. Arianna clapped a hand over her mouth and pulled away from Brian.
Brian tensed and looked at Arianna where she now balanced precariously on the far edge of the bed. His annoyance over what had appeared to be a rejection despite all they had shared before falling asleep turned to confusion as he studied her. She did not look as if she now regretted what they had shared, nor did she look angry. She looked nervous and just a little afraid, rather like someone who expects some sort of blow to fall at any moment.
“What is wrong?” he asked, fighting the urge to reach for her for, if she backed away again, she would topple right out of bed and onto the floor. He was also getting tired of the way she kept fleeing his arms.
“I need to clean my teeth,” she said, her hand still over her mouth muffling her words.
“Why? Ye did it ere ye climbed into bed and ye havenae eaten anything since then.”
“’Tis needed. Claud said I had foul breath in the morning.”
“Nay, ye dinnae.” If Claud were not already dead and buried, Brian thought yet again, he would gladly kill the fool, but only after beating him soundly first.
“How could ye ken whether I do or nay? We havenae kissed. Claud ne’er kissed me in the morning if we woke together for he said that my breath when I first woke rivaled the stench of the garderobe.”
“Claud was an idiot. Ye were sleeping with your mouth open, lass. If ye had breath that foul I was close enough that I would have smelled it. When will ye believe that the mon was probably angry that he didnae have the courage to tell his family the truth, that he had gotten himself caught up in a tangle of lies, and ’tis verra clear from all ye tell me about him that he wasnae a mon to shoulder his own blame. So, he spat his anger out at ye. I cannae say it enough. That was all it was, lies meant to beat ye down.”
“He ne’er hit me,” she said, cautiously removing her hand from her mouth.
“Aye, he did, and weel ye ken it, though ye seem to forget it quickly. All my words of wisdom cast aside like sad refuse,” he murmured, and almost smiled at her glare for it showed she still had her spirit. “He struck out at ye often, I am thinking. With words. Ye ken weel that they can hurt and scar as easily as fists.”
Arianna stared at him as she thought over what he had said. She had been casting his words from her mind, not really thinking much on them. Wordscouldscar. She knew that in her mind, but deep in her heart Brian’s wise words had not yet taken hold. Constant criticisms could beat one down as thoroughly as fists. Claud was always criticizing her when he was not ignoring her or burdening her with all the work he should have been doing himself. The way he had so flagrantly favored his mistress over his wife had also left its scars, if only because such actions silently strengthened every criticism he had flung at her. Arianna was not sure how she could heal those scars for his sharp insults and unending criticisms still whispered through her mind. She had, after all, thought she had cured herself of Claud’s criticism of her worth in the bedchamber yet, with the rising of the sun, had fallen into the same old trap.
“Are ye certain he lied?” she asked, tentatively moving closer to him.
“Jesu, lass, I would tell ye if it was so bad that ye should clean your teeth ere I kiss ye. Foul breath in the morning curses us all from time to time and ’tis nay something to fret o’er but, I swear to ye, yours isnae foul.”
Brian pulled her into his arms and kissed her. She tensed as if she feared he would begin to gag and push her away, but quickly softened in his arms. The way she fit so snugly there, her silken flesh warm against his skin, had him hard and hungry for more of what they had shared last night. When she twined her slim arms around his neck and pressed her lithe body even closer, he decided there was no harm in lingering in bed for a while longer.
